This Week In Quotes: April 22 – April 29

You know, and by the way, my opponent (Mark Critz), he now says that – you know that he’s not liberal but yet he goes to Washington, D.C., he raises money with Nancy Pelosi. He brought Joe Biden in who says that he wants no more coal plants in America. He’s raising money from the liberals to come back to the district to claim that he’s not one. It’s crazy. — Tim Burns

Our culture has few taboos that can’t be violated, and our establishment has largely given up on setting standards in the first place. Except where Islam is concerned. There, the standards are established under threat of violence, and accepted out of a mix of self-preservation and self-loathing. This is what decadence looks like: a frantic coarseness that “bravely” trashes its own values and traditions, and then knuckles under swiftly to totalitarianism and brute force. — Ross Douthat

…If campaign contributions amount to any sort of referendum on the 2008 election, the Democrats won going away among these “Wall Street schemers.” Politically, if not culturally, the denizens of Wall Street reside comfortably in the Democratic column. — Michael G. Franc

It is impossible for me and any other serious Democrat to get this body to move forward until we prove to the American people we can secure our borders. — Lindsey Graham

(Sarah Palin’s) trying to make fascism fashionable and she gets away with it.” — Alan Grayson

Unfortunately, our newly passed health care plan lends weight to the argument that your health affects my pocketbook, and justifies me in telling you how to live. When “we’re all in this together,” woe betide the man who’d rather be left alone. — Gene Healy

I realize that this may be too nuanced for some. But the distinction is important because of all the hyperventilated charges that Arizona now is a Nazi, Communist and Apartheid state (quite a combination).

At its heart, the accusations of racism stem from the view which many critics of the Arizona law share, but will not state: All our immigration laws are racist because the vast majority of illegal immigrants are non-white, and of those, a majority are Mexican. Immigration laws, therefore, must be racist, and those who seek enforcement of the laws are racists. — William Jacobson

I’m wondering if we look at the map of Congressman Grijalva’s congressional district if we haven’t already ceded that component of Arizona to Mexico judging by the voice that comes out of him, he’s advocating for Mexico rather than the United States and against the rule of law, which is one of the central pillars of American exceptionalism. — Steve King

Boy, that Timberwolf was one sh**tty deal…How much of that sh**ty deal did you sell to your clients? …You knew it was a sh**y deal! — Carl Levin

by Sir John Hawkins

John Hawkins's book 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know is filled with lessons that newly minted adults need in order to get the most out of life. Gleaned from a lifetime of trial, error, and writing it down, Hawkins provides advice everyone can benefit from in short, digestible chapters.

What (the Arizona immigration law) is likely to mean effectively is that if in the course of a traffic stop, a cop asks you for a driver’s license, and you don’t have one, and he asks you for other identification, and you have none, and he calls ICE and they have no record of you as a legal immigrant, you’re in trouble. This is near-fascism? — Rich Lowry

Arizona seeks only to enforce the nominal immigration policy of the United States. Perhaps the federal government should try it sometime. — Rich Lowry

It’s par for the course for what we have to do in Albany — fighting the forces of evil. These long-term, white supremacist, you know, Republican senators. — Brooklyn State Senator Kevin Parker

Leftist big-government policies have been disastrous for black America just as they were in the countries that most Hispanics emigrated from. But like the gambling addict who keeps gambling the more he loses, those addicted to government entitlements keep increasing the size of the government even as their situation worsens. — Dennis Prager

All of this talk from Republicans about wanting to do something about this bill before it gets on the floor is really anti-Senate and anti-American. — Harry Reid

When the private sector fails, the solution is more government. When the government fails, the solution is more government. — Glenn Reynolds

We’re in very bad shape. Sovereign credit risk in the U.S. is just as great — if not greater than [in] Greece. — Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital

If a state, or nation, has laws it will not enforce for political reasons, it mocks both the law and politics, to say nothing of the cultural order. — Cal Thomas

Gorbachev tried to reform the Communist system, and failed. If he had succeeded, I’m the one who would have failed. So we were all very happy that he failed, and if they wanted to give him the Nobel prize for his failure? That was fine with us. He failed, he got the Nobel prize – everyone was happy. On the other hand, there’s this to consider: He had the instruments of rape, and he did not use them. In other words, Gorbachev had the brute power to suppress rebellion, as his predecessors had, and refrained from using it. Every male has the instrument of rape – should we all be awarded Nobel prizes for not raping? — Lech Walesa

The winner in all of this is, undoubtedly, Rush Limbaugh. I mean, think about it. To have people out there who spend their lives cooking up ways to get him to notice them? That’s real power. If you spend all of your time obsessing over what someone says and does, taking cheap shots at every opportunity, you’re pretty much crowning them with a mantle of importance. And they spend a ton of time trying to weasel their way into a mention on his radio program. I’m sort of tempted to believe that every night, Robert Gibbs goes to bed with a picture of Rush under his pillow, hoping against hope Rush will say his name out loud, dreaming of ways to draw him into any situation. — Emily Zanotti